


Night Changes

by nhpw



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Cuddling & Snuggling, Destiel are Daddies, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Castiel, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 20:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7069270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhpw/pseuds/nhpw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As their daughter reaches a major "big girl" milestone, Dean and Castiel move forward with plans to expand their family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Changes

**Author's Note:**

> This story was an experiment in whether or not I could write ABO without sex in it. Ummm... the answer is no, although the sex is more implied than explicit and cursing is at a minimum, hence the T rating. 
> 
> This story (minus the ABO, obvi) may or may not be inspired by recent events in my personal life. #sorrynotsorry

Dean wasn't a cuddler by nature. He liked to move too much, liked to be on the go, jetting from one task to another and another. He hugged, sure, and kissed and showed affection, but he didn’t really cuddle because he didn’t really like to be still for the time it took to do it right.

Castiel did, though, and it seemed Claire had inherited the cuddling gene from her Omega dad. It wasn't unusual for Dean to come home from a long day at the office to find Cas in the recliner with a lapful of preschooler, lost in hushed conversation about one thing or another. 

She was a quiet kid, a bit awkward; a thinker, too, like Castiel. She was so much like Cas, in fact, that Dean might question whether she carried any of his own genes at all, if it weren't for the fact that she looked just like him. She was blonde-haired and emerald-eyed with a strong jaw and cheekbones. Hell, she even had his bowlegs.

In any case, she was a cuddler, and starting with the breakdown of her crib to a daybed at 18 months of age, there wasn't a night that passed when Cas wouldn't be seated on the floor next to her bed, his head dipped awkwardly to rest facing hers on the pillow. She’d ask for “five more minutes? Please Daddy?” and he's stroke her locks back behind her ear and just smile softly. It was a wonder to behold, and Dean knew better than to intervene.

He’d tried once, last year when she was 3 and Dean was in rut and really needed his mate _right_ _then_ and Cas had just growled at him like a mother lion, protecting a cub from a wolf on the prowl.

It was different now, though. It was  _ very _ different, Dean thought as he and Cas made a collective effort of putting Claire to bed on her first night in her Big Girl Bed - a white flat-pack frame they’d hauled home from IKEA six months prior. Now 4 years old, she had outgrown the crib mattress and her ever-expanding toy collection was overflowing the nursery. Not only that, but Dean and Cas had other plans for that crib, and other plans for that room.

“All right big girl,” Dean said with a smile as he smoothed back the blond ringlet curling down her forehead, and Cas blew softly at the ringlet so that it tickled her skin. The little girl giggled before Dean tucked her brand-new comforter up to her chin. “You all comfy and cozy?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes went to the bedside light - soft pink, just barely darker than the blush of the fresh paint covering her walls - which Dean flipped on just as Cas ticked down the light switch that controlled the overhead light in the room. She squirmed a bit under the covers, feeling out the extra stretches and kicks allowed by the larger twin bed. Then, predictably, her eyes went to Castiel. “Cuddle me in my new bed, Daddy?  _ Pleeeeease _ ?”

Castiel aimed a sidelong glance at Dean - soft, but meaningful. “For a little while, Baby,” he said, and approached from the doorway. Dean drew a deep breath as his mate brushed past, and the heady scent tingled his nostrils as much as it did his groin. 

“Hey,” he said throatily, fingers twitching as he reached out in the soft light of their daughter’s room to brush up Castiel’s right arm. The Omega startled and turned to face him, and at the sight of his mate’s blown pupils, Dean couldn’t hold back the growl that rumbled through his chest. “We don’t have long.  _ You _ don’t have long.” He kept it low and near Castiel’s ear, trying his best to spare his daughter the biological imperative resonating between her parents.

“I know.”

“You’re  _ shaking _ , Cas.”

Eyes closed in agony, Castiel offered a nod. Then his eyes snapped open and pinned Dean in place. “Alpha.”

“ _ Mine _ ,” Dean growled, and  _ fuck _ , it took all of his willpower not to jump Cas right there. The smell coming off him was growing more palpable by the second - a familiar musky vanilla that drove Dean headlong toward acting on his primitive impulses. “You’re  _ ripe _ , Cas. I gotta have you  _ now _ .”

There was a tense moment where Castiel looked like he might cry, and it weaseled under Dean’s skin enough to smooth over the urges threatening to consume him. His father’s words echoed from long ago and far away, crawling into Dean’s consciousness from his oldest memory files. 

_ “We Alphas put a lot of stock in the end-all, be-all of our mating bond, but I tell ya, son, that mark ain’t nothin’ compared to the bond between an Omega and their pups. You don’t come between that, not  _ ever _ , y’ hear?” _

He’d been barely 16, newly presented - he’d had maybe one rut at that point, fucked into a mattress and knotted in his own fist - but he’d carried that little tidbit for ten solid years. He’d remembered it as a lone wolf on the prowl before he’d met Cas, and kept it in mind as he bonded, mated, and eventually bred him.

Still, it wasn’t until he’d seen Cas hold Claire for the first time that he’d truly understood. 

“OK. OK. Shhh,” he hushed now, drawn out of his memories by a hitch in his mate’s throat. 

“You’re right,” Came Castiel’s whimper, “I can’t… But... she needs me. She’s growing up so fast and I...”

The pleading in those sapphires nearly broke Dean’s heart. He rested his head against his mate’s and nodded. “Go into our room,” he said, struggling to keep his breathing even and his voice low. “I’ll be along in a minute.” He pulled back to see the hope, and the glistening of tears about to spill over, before Cas turned away to face their daughter. 

“Claire, Baby, Papa’s going to stay with you for a little while, OK?”

“But I want  _ you _ ,” came the predictable near-whine of disappointment, and Dean tried not to give himself over to a sinking feeling of his own.

“I know, Honeybee. But Daddy…” at Cas’ hesitation, Dean came up to the head of the bed and climbed in behind Claire, taking her into what he hoped was a comforting embrace.

“Daddy’s not feeling well,” he supplied, winking at Cas over their daughter’s shoulder, and Cas nodded in agreement even as he worried his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Does your tummy hurt?” Now Claire sounded concerned, and Dean wholeheartedly approved Castiel’s next play.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, Sweetheart,” he said, so forlornly that Dean nearly believed him.

She surrendered then, sagging into her Alpha father with the words, “I love you Daddy.”

“Love you too, Honeybee.” Dean didn’t miss how swiftly Cas exited, but he was quickly distracted by Claire, who had turned so that she could face Dean and curl up into a ball against his chest.

“Papa?”

“Yes Darlin’?”

“I wanted to say I love you.”

He considered that penance for her earlier request for Cas in his place. “I love you too, Claire. I love you… so much.”

“How much?”

“ _ How much _ ?” He repeated, mocking a shocked expression, and she nodded and giggled into his chest. “So much. So, so much. Way more than you will ever know.”

She settled down in his arms, then, her squirming falling off to a minimum. “Papa?”

“Yes Baby?”

“Um. Well. I love you.”

This time it was Dean who laughed - a warm, soft sound bubbling into a kiss pressed into her golden locks. “Me too.”

She was quiet for a beat before the next words floated out. “Do you love Daddy, too?”

“Claire, I love Daddy more than all the stars in the sky.”

“And that’s why you’re always hugging and kissing all over him?”

Dean laughed again and hugged her close. “Yes. Now hush. Any more questions you have in that brain of yours are gonna have to wait til tomorrow, because Daddy...” he paused. “I think Daddy needs me more than you do right now.”

“Because he’s not feeling very well?” She still had a few mispronounced words in her ever-increasing vocabulary, and “very” was one. It came out “dairy,” and the innocence of it warmed Dean on the inside.

“Yes. Because he’s not feeling very well.”

“Ok. Oh. Papa?”

He sighed, and in the beat before her question, wondered how it was that Castiel managed to do this every single night and not lose his mind. “Yes Claire?”

“Will you give Daddy a kiss for me, too? But not, um, not with the same kisses you give him. OK?  The little ones like this.” She demonstrated with a chaste peck to his lips.

He couldn’t resist nuzzling her jaw with his nose in response. “OK big girl.” He moved to get up.

“Papa?”

Dean rolled his eyes.

Let out a long breath.

Thought of Cas… the scent of his heat still lingered in the room.

“Yes Claire?”

“Five more minutes? Please?”

He looked down at her expectant green eyes - mirror images of his own. Looked at the door. Looked back at his child.

Nodded, and laid back down, taking her once again into his arms.

She said no more after that, just settled into his embrace, with each breath becoming more heavy against his right arm, which was trapped beneath her tiny frame. Eventually, her breathing regulated enough that he dared to peek over, and sure enough, she was fast asleep.

Dean gingerly freed himself from his daughter and her bed, exiting the room and closing the door with a nearly silent click.

He found Cas dozing on their bed in the next room, a silicone inflatable knot tossed to his right side, but the Omega seemed to sense Dean’s presence and roused, an apologetic half-smile gracing his features. “Sorry,” he said.

Dean just shrugged and stripped down to his boxers before crawling into bed and covering his mate’s body with his own, lazily kissing his mouth with lips and tongue. “I swear, she keeps up the cockblocking and she’s never gonna to be a big sister.”

“That macho Alpha attitude is lost on me, Dean. You enjoyed that cuddle.” Cas keened, head thrown back in surrender to his Alpha’s ministrations as Dean’s mouth moved to his neck and his tongue began to lick at the mating bite scar. “‘Sides. Plenty of time yet this heat.”

“Fine. I did. And in any case, she’s asleep now.” There’s no mistaking the intent of his hands, busy as they are beneath the covers.

“Dean?”

“Hmmm?”

“You’re a good mate. A good father.”

“Mmhmmm, I like to think so.”

“Also really…” he hissed as Dean’s teeth scraped over the mating bite, “really  _ really  _ good in bed.”

Dean pulled back, eyebrows raised. “Now  _ that _ … that I  _ didn’t _ know.”

“Shut up.”

“ _ You _ shut up.”

“Make me.”

The challenge shot up Dean’s spine and he swallowed the mock-squabble with a kiss. Gone is the gentleness as he lets his Alpha claim its prize - a mouthy Omega in heat, his mate, his love, his everything. The man who had borne him a beautiful pup and would soon bear him another.

Afterward, tied together and both full of hope for a successful breeding, Dean curved around Castiel’s spine and held him close, pecking lazy, gentle kisses over the Omega’s neck and left shoulder. This afterglow was part and parcel to mating, especially during a heat. It was virtually the  _ only _ time when Dean savored stillness, sated and sleepy and waiting for the time when nature would allow him to pull away and retrieve snacks and water for them both. 

Dean Winchester wasn’t a cuddler by nature.

But he could be persuaded, on occasion, to make an exception.


End file.
